The US had a lot of weather to talk about during Thanksgiving week. A vigorous cold front brought severe storms to the midwest on Monday last week, with squalls of up to 75 mph and large hailstones.

Tornadoes hit Illinois and Wisconsin‚ apparently the first in November in Wisconsin for 39 years, leaving about 4,000 homes without power. The same front brought snow and low temperatures to the Pacific north-west on Monday and Tuesday. At Seattle-Tacoma airport, 6cm of snow fell, the most in November since records began in 1945. By contrast, ahead of the weather system it was unseasonably warm, and Oklahoma City reached 26C last Wednesday.

Torrential rain and severe thunderstorms swept across Italy and the Balkans early last week, and flooding was particularly severe in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where 130mm of rain fell in under three hours on Monday last week. It left the main street, the Stradun, under half a metre of water.

Although the first Ashes Test in Brisbane, Australia, missed the worst of the rain, other parts of Queensland had heavy rain and floods last week. More than 200mm of rain fell on Yeppoon, 400 miles north of Brisbane, and many towns have broken their November rainfall records. The Northern Territory also had tropical downpours, and Darwin was deluged with over 100mm of rain in just one hour yesterday. Above average late spring rainfall there may be associated with the current La Niña event.